Find Your Mentor

Katie Hawkins-Gaar is a freelance writer, journalism consultant, co-founder of Poynter’s Leadership Academy for Women in Media—and creator of this website, Digital Women Leaders. She writes a popular weekly newsletter called My Sweet Dumb Brain and serves on the advisory board for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. Katie has written about topics like grief, mental health, and motherhood for national publications including The New York Times, Glamour, Vox, Outside Magazine, Fortune, and more.

Prior to becoming a freelancer, Katie previously worked as the digital innovation faculty at Poynter, where she launched The Cohort, a newsletter dedicated to women in digital media, and co-founded 40 Better Hours, a project to improve newsroom culture. Prior to Poynter, she was the editor of CNN iReport, overseeing a team of producers responsible for soliciting, verifying, and reporting stories based on audience-submitted news. Katie lives in Atlanta with her musician partner and young daughter, and is always on the hunt for a great book to read.